ISO/TS 9241-126:2019

Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 126: Guidance on the presentation of auditory information

Scope

This document provides guidance for the auditory presentation of information controlled by software, irrespective of the device. It includes specific properties such as the syntactic or semantic aspects of information, e.g. coding techniques, and gives provisions for the organization of information taking account of human perception and memory capabilities.
This document does not address the hardware issues of the transmission and the production of auditory information.
NOTE 1 Volume is dependent on hardware and thus cannot always be absolutely controlled by software. Environmental conditions can also affect the ability for sounds to be perceived, which can be beyond the ability of the software to take into account.
This document does not apply to auditory alarms, warnings or other safety-related uses of auditory information.
NOTE 2 Safety-related uses of auditory presentation of information are covered in various domain specific standards, such as ISO 7731:2003 which deals with auditory danger signals for public and work areas, and IEC 60601-1-8:2006 which provides very specific requirements for auditory alarms for medical devices.
While this document applies to the presentation of all non-safety-related information, it does not include application domain specific guidance (e.g., audio instructions for consumer products).
This document can be utilized throughout the design process (e.g. as specification and guidance for designers during design or as a basis for heuristic evaluation). Its provisions for the presentation of information depend on the auditory design approach, the task, the user, the environment and the single or multiple technologies that can be used for presenting the information. Consequently, this document cannot be applied without knowledge of the context of use. It is not intended to be used as a prescriptive set of rules to be applied in its entirety but rather assumes that the designer has proper information available concerning task and user requirements and understands the use of available technology.
This document does not address visual or tactile/haptic presentation of information or modality shifting for the presentation of auditory information in other modalities.
NOTE 3 ISO 9241-112 provides high-level ergonomic guidance that applies to all modalities.